As stated in the title to this descriptive report, this invention refers to a cardboard pallet that has been perfected in certain elements and/or parts of it, specifically in the construction and mounting of its legs, in order to provide greater strength and durability for the pallet; with the particular feature that those legs are obtained from a portion of the cardboard with suitable folding lines for shaping a hollow body by way of a bowl without any cuts or stuck parts, being sealed so that water cannot enter via the corrugation of the cardboard.
At present, in addition to the classical wooden pallets, cardboard pallets are also used which are, of course, more economical. However, cardboard pallets suffer from a serious drawback determined by the lack of strength of their legs, due to which they undergo notable deterioration as a consequence of the humidity that the floor or surface on which they are stacked sometimes has. This humidity in the floor penetrates through the cardboard that the legs are made of, causing their deterioration and, eventually, rendering the pallet useless.
Moreover, the drawback has to be added that the configuration of the legs requires cutting and sticking of parts and/or flaps forming part of those legs and which are necessary not just in order to permit the final shaping but also in order to try to provide the leg with adequate strength.
The pallet of the invention, being of the type that consists entirely of cardboard, in which certain corrugated cardboard sheets are backed and fixed to each other in order to determine the body of the pallet, complemented with the legs, also of cardboard, and an upper closing cover which perimetrically embraces the said cardboard sheets, presents the particular feature that the legs are shaped starting from the folding of a portion of the corrugated cardboard, whose contour can be regarded as polygonal, presenting four sectors in the form of a cross deriving from one sector, and a central sector constituting the support base for the actual leg, in such a way that between those sectors certain double triangular sectors are defined with a notch in the outside vertex where each pair of triangular sectors meets. All the sectors are demarcated by folding lines, the rectangular sectors presenting separate prolongations that project with respect to the general contour of the cardboard portion, determining flaps for positioning and sticking on the surface of the body of the pallet, specifically on notches made in a polygonal aperture of the sheets already referred to, superposed and glued together, via which aperture the leg is introduced once it has been shaped following the appropriate folding along the said folding lines.
The configuration of each leg, once shaped, is trunco-pyramidal, the triangular sectors being folded in the form of pleats in such a way that the vertices determining the folds where the notches of each pair of triangular sectors are made meet in the centre of the upper and open part of the trunco-pyramidal body constituting the leg, providing it with great strength. It could also have any other suitable configuration.
The securing by the upper part of the flaps of each leg is achieved by means of a cardboard cover that is superposed on the upper part of the body defining the two glued sheets, this cover having certain extensions or flaps that are depressed downwards and fixed by gluing on the lower side surface of the said body formed by the two sheets, due to which the pallet becomes constituted by these two sheets and the cover, fixed together by gluing, with the complement of the legs constituted and fitted in the described manner.
The number of legs that the pallet will include will be that which is suitable in each case, though of course this depends on the size of that pallet and on the load it has to bear, said legs presenting the particular feature of not having any cut nor stuck flaps, and their being externally provided with a waterproof surface which, in combination with their structure, will cause the pallet to have greater durability and strength than conventional ones.
The mounting of the legs, which is simple, quick and economical, can be done by pressure, by punching or by suction.
Another fundamental characteristic is that the orientation of the channels corresponding to the corrugation of the cardboard is orthogonal in the two sheets, in other words, the channels of one sheet run in the transverse direction with respect to the channels of the other, while the cover will present its channels orientated in the same way as those corresponding to the lower sheet, all of which gives rise to a greater consistency in the structure of the pallet.